Rogue One: Death Stars, plot holes and a darker side of Star Wars discuss with spoilers

Heres your chance with spoilers to discuss Gareth Edwards bleak yet electrifying entry into the Star Wars universe and the future of the franchise

Rogue One might be the perfect Christmas present for the Star Wars fan who has everything, or thought they did. Where George Lucass prequels tried desperately to twist the long-running space saga into exotic new forms, Gareth Edwards bleak, electrifying entry takes everything we love about 1977s Star Wars and imagines what might have been going on in the movies peripheral vision, an inch or two either side of the main action. Its a gap-filler of a film, a plot hole-plugger, an examination of a famous event from the opposite side of the mirror.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story video trailer That this event is the destruction of the first Death Star is probably the only reason the film works, because Star Wars is so deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness that were more than willing to luxuriate in an unexpected additional episode that relies almost entirely on its predecessor for meaning. In many ways, Rogue One does not even feel like a movie, but more like TV. I was reminded of the Lost episode The Other 48 Days, in which the mystery show rewound to the beginning to present the story of another group of survivors of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 even though the shows previous 20 hours or so has been spent in the company of the established characters.

All this makes Edwards movie a strangely discombobulating experience, despite all those luxurious Easter eggs and electrifying visits to gorgeously imagined planets. And yet the critical consensus is that Rogue One has succeeded where Lucass prequel trilogy failed. The new movie, the first Star Wars spin-off, currently boasts a rating of 85% fresh on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, only just down on The Force Awakens 92% and higher than all other episodes bar Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Where would you rate it in the canon? And how does the new film bode for the future of the looming Star Wars cinematic universe? Heres your chance to give your verdict on the movies key talking points.

From the opening scene in which Jyn Ersos mother found herself mown down by Deathtrooper bullets, Rogue One set out its stall as a Star Wars movie for mature audiences, the grimmest entry since 1980s The Empire Strikes Back. The original trilogy always balanced the horrors of the dark side with a sense of hope surrounding Luke Skywalkers endeavours. But Edwards film never balks at showing the desperation of the Rebel Alliance and their allies, the misery of the downtrodden peoples of the galaxy and the bloody fate likely to be faced by anyone who gets on the wrong side of the Empire. By the time the credits roll, every member of the Rogue One crew has met a horrible death, just to give Luke Skywalker the chance to blow up the Death Star. Warn your friends with young children now, this is not one for the kids!

The plot hole-filling

Has there ever before been a movie created almost entirely to paper over the cracks of one of its predecessors? The preposterous convenience of the exhaust port on the original Death Star that can be used to blow the entire space station to smithereens has been a talking point for decades. Now we know that Galen Erso built it that way deliberately to take revenge on Krennic and his Imperial buddies for making him build the giant planet-killing superweapon in the first place.

Might Disney be on to something here? Expect a future Star Wars spin-off to explain why baby Luke was sent to live on his dads home planet and never warned to keep his famous surname a secret, despite the obvious dangers of Vader discovering his identity. And perhaps we can get another instalment that explains Obi-Wan Kenobis inability to recognise R2-D2 and C-3PO in the original Star Wars, despite having known both for decades.

The completely misleading trailers

What is the point of releasing trailers for Rogue One when very little of the footage in them appears to have made the final cut? Whatever happened to Saw Gerrera hinting that Jyn might end up turning to the dark side in the debut teaser, or Mon Mothma discussing the junior Ersos shady past in the same trailer? Felicity Joness awful I rebel line is absent.

Its well known that early trailers are often made with footage that ends up discarded, but Octobers final trailer for Rogue One featured completely different takes of Jyn rousing the rebels from those seen in the final movie. In the trailer, Jones is upbeat and optimistic; in the final cut, these scenes are doom-laden. The overall picture presented was of a much cheerier film than the gloomy, darkling entry that ended up in cinemas.

Did you also enjoy the brief glimpse of Mos Eisley gangster Cornelius Evazan? How about Luke Skywalkers future X-wing pilot comrades, or the superbly rendered Mon Calamari commander Admiral Raddus, who appears to be a distant relative of Admiral Ackbar? Perhaps the piece de resistance here was the miraculous final shot featuring a young Carrie Fisher, even if it must have made a seriously incomprehensible ending for anyone who has not seen Star Wars.

Then there was Darth Vaders swashbuckling revival. The scene in which the charred remains of Anakin Skywalker are seen in an Imperial take on Luke Skywalkers bacta tank from Empire Strikes Back was an unexpected sideswipe into body horror territory that summed up Rogue Ones obsession with the grimmer corners of the Star Wars galaxy. And the Sith Lords arrival on Leias ship gave us the lightsaber battle that no Star Wars movie should be without, even if it was pretty one-sided.

The future of Star Wars

Where does Rogue One leave Disneys mooted cinematic universe? If Edwards movie hits the magic $1bn mark signs look positive it will have proved that Star Wars can flourish without Skywalkers, Jedi Knights and miraculous feats of telekinesis, as well as putting the lie to the suggestion that the long-running space opera is just for kids. Rogue Ones thrillingly raw and downbeat veneer might even allow room for the upcoming young Han Solo movie, not to mention Episode VIII, to dip into duskier territory than we might have imagined. More than anything, the films success will have proved that passion for further Star Wars adventures has remains undimmed, almost four decades after the original episode ushered in the blockbuster era, and that the Mouse House was right to suggest that the sagas potential for future spin-offs is almost infinite. A new Star Wars film every year? At this rate, Rogue One makes that task look easier than bullseyeing a womp rat.